Summary

Ok, it's blog day, but I published everything else I did today to set the stage for this. It's kind of a summary of the processing I've been doing lately. Keep in mind that this post will probably make it seem pretty bleak, but I'm only telling one facet of my experience - the part with the orphans. And I'm not even telling too much about the good times with the kids, because that's not my focus here. Just don't want you to get the wrong impression. Four months is a long time and a lot happened.

God called me to Ghana to minister to orphans. I had been feeling this call for years, and He had finally opened the door for me to respond. But when I got there, I realized that nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced. I saw kids in desperate need of the basic necessities of life. Sometimes there weren't even enough diapers for the babies. The home was terribly understaffed, which meant that children who were supposed to have a mother and father devoted to them might have to share one woman with fifteen other children. Sometimes when donations were poor the children wouldn't have enough food. [See "Dying to Self" for more details about the conditions.] I became obsessed with trying to help these children. Though there was no way I could buy food for everyone, I wanted to give them the food they could have, change their diapers, and try to make their life a little better.
However, I soon became exhausted and depressed. What happened to Evan [see post about him] didn't help things, but even if that hadn't happened things weren't going well. I felt I just couldn't stand the pain around me, and instead of making a difference, I felt myself starting to shut everything out. I didn't want to go to the orphanage - it was only sheer obedience to God that kept me going. When I went, sometimes I felt better as I interacted with the kids, but more often I felt I just couldn't stand it and couldn't wait to get out of there. What made it worse was hot tired I felt. I blamed the tiredness on depression, but it was really debilitating. I prayed to God to renew my strength - I wanted to help those kids - but I felt no answer. Most days all I could do was hold them and sing to them to try to stop them from crying.
When it was time to leave, my heart broke at the thought of leaving them behind no better than when I had come, but at the same time I just wanted to go home. Funny that I don't think I learned much while I was over there, but I've learned a ton since I've been back as I've been processing and praying. It turned out that I was really infested with parasites for three of the four months I was there, which contributed to my extreme weakness, but that fact doesn't change what I've learned... It just gave me the time to process as I recovered.

What I've Learned:

1) I responded to God's call, but I went in my own strength. My attitude was something like, "God, thank you for saving me. Now aren't you glad I'm on Your team? I want to serve You. Look at what I'm going to do for you!" Right. I was fulfilling my own desire to help people, not God's. I was thinking about what I wanted to do for them so that my heart would no longer ache for them. [see "It's Not About What I Want"]
When my strength ran out, when my capacity to love failed me, I got upset that God wasn't helping me. I didn't understand that I was looking to God for a drink of normal water (see John 4 - woman at the well) instead of letting HIs living water fill me to overflowing. His living water would never have run dry. I wanted Him to give me my strength and my love back. He wanted to give me His. [see "Sick of Second Chances"] It was so hard for me to grasp that I needed to focus on my relationship with Him. I didn't see ow sitting and receiving His love could help alleviate the suffering I saw.
Now I see that it was the only way, because I needed something to give. [see "Dua Fe" and "Run by Standing Still"]

2) I got frustrated because I didn't see how anything I did was making a long-term difference. You feed a kid and they'll be hungry again. A sick kid gets better to face what kind of life? There was so much hopelessness, and I didn't see any way out. I thought my faith was wavering because I didn't see how God could possibly do anything. I had no idea that I was asking too little. I wanted to feed these kids - God wanted them to know they had a Father. I wanted to save lives - God wanted to bring life into their existence. [see "Greater than These" and "Fatherless"]
I was asking God for the perishable. God wanted to give them His living water.

3) Despite my attempts to get in the way, in His incredible mercy God still used me. Remember how I said all I could do a lot was sit and sing to them? I thought I was failing, but in those moments God was using me to pour His life and love into them. I am so filled with awe and gratitude when I think about how He allowed me to be a part of His plan even when I messed everything up
It's not about me, it's about Him. I will never be "good enough" for Him to use, but He uses anything He can get!

The Result:

I pray for myself, and I pray for those kids. I pray that I would remain broken before Him so He can fill me with His life and make me His tree. And I pray that those ids would know their Father. I care that they get fed, but I know their Father will take care of those details. He loves them more than I do.